PAT CAPUTO: Detroit Tigers become kittens on the road

The Tigers' 2-0 loss to the Oakland A's in Game 3 of an American League Division Series Tuesday was not surprising.

It just followed their script for this season.

It was true - the Tigers were up two games to none going into it, and could have clinched the series with a victory.

Watch Caputo's take on the Tigers on today's News at Noon.

This game was on the road, though. The Tigers are a very different team away from Comerica Park.

Home field is a standard advantage in baseball - just like any other sport. Familiar surroundings and fan support are of great benefit.

The Tigers have taken it to an extreme. This season, they had the 15th-best road record in the major leagues - 38-43. At home, they were 50-31, which tied with six other clubs (including Oakland) for the second-best mark in MLB, just a game behind Washington.

There was only one other major league team with an above .500 record overall this season with a below .500 road mark, the Chicago White Sox, and they were just a game under on the road.

When the Tigers are home, the opposition center fielder drops a relatively routine fly ball. When the Tigers are on the road, he makes a brilliant catch above the wall. You know, like Oakland's Coco Crisp.

When the Tigers get runners in scoring position late in games at Comerica Park, they tend to score. When the Tigers are on the road, they don't tend to not even get runners in scoring position, like Tuesday when they were shutdown by Oakland pitchers Brian Anderson, Scott Dolittle, Ryan Cook and Grant Balfour. The Tigers had four hits and two walks - just six base runners. They whiffed11 times.

Sure, Prince Fielder was robbed of hits twice, not only by Crisp of a home run, but a possible extra base hit by Oakland's superb rookie left fielder Yoenis Cespedes. Honestly, though, there wasn't a lot of threatening go on.

Starter Anibal Sanchez pitched a terrific game for the Tigers. Octavio Dotel was excellent out of the bullpen. Didn't matter. The Tigers are on the road. Too often, they can't buy a hit on the road. It's the one factor that doesn't make a lot of sense about their status as the chic pick to win the World Series. Tuesday's game was remindful of that three-game sweep in Kansas City. Or was it the three-game sweep in Los Angeles. Or that dreadful road trip to Texas? Or the one to Cleveland? Or was it...

It's an issue. Unless they face the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Championship Series, the Tigers will not have home field advantage in any series from this point forward. This has been a problem, and it does make this series especially precarious given the A's sterling home record. Oakland has won nine of its last 10, and 19 of its last 24, at home, with all those games being played under enormous pressure.

The pitching matchup in Game 4 does favor the Tigers greatly. While A's starter A.J. Griffin did take the American League by storm upon his arrival to the major leagues, he has been rocked in his last several starts, including by the Tigers at Comerica Park in September. Tigers' starter Max Scherzer has had shoulder ailment issues, but until that time, he was one of the best starting pitchers in baseball the second half of the year, and he did throw the ball exceptionally well in his last regular season start.

Scherzer and Justin Verlander on back-to-back days? You'd think the A's would be in trouble.

The only disconcerting part of this is the Tigers' road foibles.

A common formula in sports is to hold a decided edge in home games and at least split on the road. The Tigers have been able to hold up the first end of the bargain all season. It was the second part that nearly cost them a spot in the postseason.

Now they have held serve in the first two games of this series with Oakland, but the road leg has played out just like the regular season, at least so far.

It just takes one win - and the Tigers move on. It seemed so simple entering Tuesday.

If the Tigers don't win Game 4, the edge is completely erased. That's the thing about tonight's game.